Rain of Pain

The "Rain of Pain" technique is a style of fighting that requires a borg capable of firing faster than it can air-strafe. With this ability in tow, certain borgs can almost indefinitely hover while firing, redefining the style of play for many ground-oriented borgs: Gold Hero is famous for this technique.

Although one would imagine that it'd be a wiser choice to select a winged borg, the "Rain of Pain" technique offers some discrepancies in play style that many players would prefer. Due to their nature, borgs that can utilize the technique generally have very short air-dashes, as opposed to winged borgs which have slow, drawn out air-dashes to match their already fluttery gameplay. Because of these small dashes, the borgs have an easier time making quick decisions and changes in direction, allowing for more defensive gameplay, and allowing for a more reliable conservation of health.

The effectiveness of this technique is not without disagreement, but against CPUs it works quite well. However, in the heat of a versus mode battle, even human players can have issues with this basic technique. The "Rain of Pain" takes advantage of any downtime that the opponent has as far as stopping, while offering you no downtime at all aside from recharging your ammo. Because of this, certain borgs simply cannot stand up to the technique. Side-stepping, although effective for dodging burst-shots, is found to be nearly useless against this technique, due to the usual pause between sidesteps. Because of this, a large selection of borgs are already useless on the ground. In fact, basic walking would probably be a better idea.

Even against flying borgs, the "Rain of Pain" is found to be rather effective, trading infinite air-time for a lack of downtime. Flying borgs generally have a longer bullet-recharge time than foot-borgs, and because of their previously mentioned dragged-out airdashes, the flying borgs are left extremely vulnerable, with the opponent aware of the flyers next position. On another note, aircraft are left in the dust as well, due to their complete lack of an air-strafe, but both the craft and the opponent are more than likely to do massive damage to eachother because the direction of choice, which in this case would be toward eachother.

Unfortunately, most borgs that can utilize this technique have low health, but with enough caution a "Rain of Pain" user should not have to take much damage at all. Assuming they have an extreme height selection (heighest point in the map), and are not facing another "Rain of Pain" user, the technique provides for a drawn-out but safe battle strategy.

The biggest disadvantage any user has is the lack basic defense which cannot be made up for with any amount of strafing. Basically instant-laser attacks will destroy the always-visible user, as well as cannons which can fire behind walls, and of course anyone patient enough to stand inside a desk for a few minutes.

Overall this may very well be one of the most effective (and hated) techniques in Gotcha Force.